Deck 4: Historical Development of Evolutionary Theory

Question 1

Traits that do not seem to confer any advantages or disadvantages on their carriers are called

A) adaptive traits.
B) neutral traits.
C) maladaptive traits.
D) heritable traits.
E) variable traits.

Answer 1

neutral traits.

Question 2

The development of a new species may occur if a subgroup of a species finds itself in a radically new environment; the process known as

A) fossilization.
B) diagenesis.
C) speciation.
D) migration.
E) inheritance.

Answer 2

speciation.

Question 3

Darwin's publication of "On the Origin of Species" was hastened by the work of a fellow naturalist, who had independently reached conclusions about the evolution of species that matched Darwin's own; both men observed that

A) catastrophism to be supported in the geological record.
B) species being fixed and constant in form.
C) fossils to be tricks of nature.
D) slow geological processes operating on the earth.
E) there was individual variation in appearance within a species.

Answer 3

there was individual variation in appearance within a species.

Question 4

Mammals have the following advantage over reptiles

A) warm-blooded.
B) increased intelligence.
C) placental reproduction.
D) all of the above
E) A and B only

Question 5

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Buffon, Hutton and Lyell used this sort of evidence to advance the concept of uniformitarianism.

A) anthropological
B) biological
C) geological
D) geographical
E) sociological

Question 6

Which of the following is not a barrier to successful reproduction between members of different species?

A) Differences in body structure.
B) Gene flow.
C) Behavioural differences between species.
D) Genetic differences between species.
E) Geography.

Question 7

The increased prevalence of drug resistant forms of diseases is a result of

A) natural selection.
B) acquired inheritance.
C) poor medical condition.
D) migration.
E) increased medical costs.

Question 8

Once speciation has occurred

A) evolution can still be reversed.
B) the new species can no longer mate with other species related to the parent population.
C) offspring of the new species are not viable.
D) mutations are limited.
E) offspring are sterile.

Question 9

English natural scientist Robert Hooke

A) had virtually ignored fossils.
B) had thought erosion must have destroyed most of the fossils that ever existed.
C) had thought extinct plants and animals were not fossilized.
D) had thought that fossils were merely tricks of nature.
E) had thought that fossils were the remains of plants and animals that became extinct as the earth changed.

Question 10

Humans were classified in the order Primates, along with monkeys and apes, by

A) Linnaeus.
B) Lamarck.
C) Darwin.
D) Aristotle.
E) Plato.

Question 11

The notion that evolution had no predetermined direction and that selection acted on existing variation was proposed by

A) Ussher.
B) Lamarck.
C) Lyell.
D) Darwin.
E) Hooton.

Question 12

In evolutionary terms, adaptations represent

A) traits that enable an organism to enjoy the taste of food items.
B) traits that ensure an organism will live an average life.
C) traits that individual organisms learn in their lifetimes.
D) traits that improve the probability of surviving and leaving offspring that, themselves, survive and reproduce.
E) traits that give all individuals in a breeding population an equal likelihood of survival.

Question 13

The force of natural selection may involve easily perceivable changes over time, making it easy to observe directly.

Question 14

The extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago apparently contributed to

A) the near extinction of all reptiles.
B) the diversification of mammals into a variety of new evolutionary niches.
C) many evolutionary niches remaining permanently unoccupied.
D) the evolution of mammal-like reptiles.
E) the evolution of the amniotic egg.

Question 15

Who co-presented the theory of natural selection with Darwin at a meeting of the Linnaean Society of London?

A) James Hutton.
B) Herbert Spencer.
C) Henry Morgan.
D) Alfred Russel Wallace.
E) Thomas Chalmers.

Question 16

Evolution will ensure that new strains of common diseases will become less frequent than their original ones because of natural selection.

Question 17

A major contribution of Darwin's work was that

A) evolution has no direction.
B) evolution acts on existing variation.
C) new variation comes from mutation.
D) all of the above
E) A and B only

Question 18

For Lamarck, the process of evolutionary change by the inheritance of acquired characteristics was accompanied by

A) organisms always having changing needs.
B) change in future generations that was more and more rapid.
C) environmental conditions that provided organisms with all they needed.
D) organisms inevitably remaining imperfectly adapted to the environments.
E) organisms exhibiting a progressive move towards greater complexity and perfection.

Question 19

The process of natural selection involves three conditions or principles; these are

A) adaptive traits, high rates of predation, and high reproductive success.
B) variation across individuals, heritability of favourable traits, and differential reproductive success.
C) environmental variation, the inheritance of acquired characteristics, and species striving for perfection.
D) variation between populations, populations out-competing each other, and differential survival of populations.
E) variation in adaptive traits, variation in heritability of traits, and widespread reproductive success.

Question 20

Cuvier's theory of catastrophism presented a shrewd philosophical argument because

A) it convincingly argued that lamarck was only half right -- life was divinely created and then changed through the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
B) it allowed that extinctions could occur through natural disasters, and these were followed by the divine creation of new life forms.
C) it assumed that just as species were fixed and unchanging, the earth's geology must also be stable and unchanging.
D) it argued forcefully that global catastrophes could never really wipe out all life on earth.
E) it argued that Noah's Flood was the only catastrophic event in the earth's history and, therefore, the earth must be young.

Question 21

What is one adaptations to terrestrial life exhibited by reptiles?

Question 22

Once speciation occurs, the evolutionary process cannot be reversed.

Question 23

Charles Darwin was the first researcher to propose a theory of evolution outlining how different species developed one from another over time.

Question 24

One of the major components in the development of the idea of evolution was an understanding of the age of the earth

Question 25

A single species can consist of multiple genera.

Question 26

Lamarck argued that lower forms of life progress toward greater complexity and perfection.

Question 27

French naturalist Georges Cuvier was both a founder of the science of paleontology and a leading critic of the theory of evolution.

Question 28

How has the field of epigenetics resurrected Lamarck's theory of acquired inheritance?

Question 29

Lewis Henry Morgan argued that "primitive societies" represented degeneration.

Question 30

Sociocultural anthropologist Marshall D. Sahlins has suggested that both biological and cultural evolution move in two directions at the same time, producing diversity and progress.

Question 31

According to Darwin's theory of evolution, humans descended from monkeys.

Question 32

In the mid-seventeenth century, Irish cleric Archbishop James Ussher calculated the age of the earth to be 4 million years.